18mar05

Saddam Nerve Gas Case Set to Open in Dutch Court.

A Dutch court opens hearings on Friday
against a man accused of helping former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein
commit war crimes and genocide by providing him with materials for
chemical weapons.

Frans van Anraat, 62, is charged with supplying thousands of tonnes of
raw materials for chemical weapons used in the 1980-1988 war against Iran
and against Iraqi Kurds, including a 1988 attack on the town of Halabja,
in which an estimated 5,000 people were killed.

Prosecutors say the United Nations has described Van Anraat, who is
also charged with complicity in war crimes and genocide, as "one of the
most important middlemen in Iraq's acquisition of chemical material."

Prosecutors and the defense are expected to discuss preparations for
trial at Friday's hearing at a high-security court in the port city of
Rotterdam.

"The images of the gas attack on the Kurdish city Halabja were a shock.
But I did not give the order to do that. How many products, such as
bullets do we make in the Netherlands?" Van Anraat said in a 2003
interview with Dutch magazine Revu.

Van Anraat was arrested by Dutch officials at his Amsterdam home
in December.

He was also detained in Milan in January 1989 following a U.S. request
but was released after two months. He then went to Iraq where it is
thought he stayed until the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, when he returned
to the Netherlands through Syria.

The United States said Iraq's suspected weapons of mass destruction
were one of its main reasons for going to war in 2003, but it has
yet to discover significant stockpiles.

[Source: By Paul Gallagher, Reuters, Rotterdam, 18Mar05]

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